What Obama Should Say To Iran

Protests in Iran continue despite the theocracy’s attempt to crush them. As Tehran launches its usual accusations of “American interference,” could it be that America hasn’t “interfered” enough?

Imagine what might happen—what potential benefit there could be to us and to Iran—if this speech were made by an American President.

“Good evening. I am here to address events of great significance to the American people. Over the past weeks, we have witnessed the murdering, beating and intimidation of Iranian protestors by a theocratic regime clenching its iron fist to retain power. I strongly condemn these unjust actions of the Iranian regime.

It is time for America to be unequivocal and to recognize its past errors. It is time for the United States to make it clear that it does not recognize the sovereignty of the Islamic Republic of Iran. Iran has not had a legitimate government worthy of our recognition for decades. The country has been ruled by a series of murdering clerics who seized power outside of any legitimate political means. They were not chosen through any representative process. They are dictators of the worst kind.

For decades, the Iranian regime has repeatedly declared itself an enemy of America, openly acting in violence against our citizens. We’ve known it since the clerics and their supporters took our embassy staff hostage in 1979. We’ve known it in the form of multiple Tehran-backed attacks on Americans since: 1983 in Beirut where we lost 241 people in a bombing; 1985 when TWA 847 was hijacked by Iranian-trained Hezbollah fighters and we lost a Navy diver; 1996 at the Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia where we lost 19; the list goes on. We’ve heard their message: “Death to America.”

This is a regime that loudly calls for jihad on the West—for the violent imposition of sharia law—it calls for Islamic totalitarianism. It provides the intellectual leadership for the Islamist movement: training, financing, and otherwise encouraging a multitude of terrorist organizations—including those responsible for the September 11th attacks on our soil.  America has not forgotten that this regime orchestrated and participated in three decades of deadly assaults upon its people and is ultimately responsible for them. We have nothing to say to the Iranian regime—except that we will no longer repeat our grave errors of the past. We know what you stand for, and what threat you pose. But we do have much to say to the brave Iranians voicing their opposition to the Supreme leader, making it clear his regime does not represent them.

To those among you standing up in the face of threats; to those among you saying “We will continue to speak even if you, Supreme leader, claim that Allah forbids it”; to those among you deciding that it is time for freedom in Iran—we say: you have our encouragement, and our sanction.

To those among you protesting against more than the electoral results, who are wholesale rejecting the oppressive nature of theocratic rule—we offer you our moral and financial support. And if necessary, we will offer you military support to the best of our ability. You see, we share your goal of ending the Iranian theocracy and of eliminating the threat it poses to our own nation. We have had the moral right to end it for decades; you not only have that right, you have the moral fortitude.

To those few in Iran desperately seeking liberty: rejecting theocratic rule is critical, but what are you fighting for? Seize this opportunity to fight for a nation founded on principles that protect individual rights. As America once fought for its independence, so can you. Life, liberty, property and the pursuit of happiness: these are your inalienable rights. The time is now to fight to create a free nation upholding these principles.

It will not be easy. Our thoughts are with you as you face imminent danger and uncertainty. It will take courage and conviction. But to you, the true friend of freedom, we say: we are with you as you take your first important step towards real revolution. You have rejected the iron fist that smashes you down through religious rule. You have spoken. Stand firm, and we will stand with you.”

Unfortunately we will not hear this speech. Only a President acting on a foreign policy that properly defends the rights of its own citizens—a foreign policy of principled self-interest—would take this bold stand.

Atlas Shrugged on Floor Displays at Largest Bookstores

Atlas Shrugged on Floor Displays at Largest Bookstores

Washington, D.C., June 29, 2009– Shortly after Independence Day, new free-standing floor displays of Ayn Rand’s novel Atlas Shrugged, first published 52 years ago, will be placed in more than 850 bookstores across the United States. Borders will display the novel’s trade edition at 520 of its stores and Waldenbooks will feature the mass market paperback edition at 336 of its stores. Thousands of copies of Atlas Shrugged will be on display.

Barnes & Noble also had copies of Atlas Shrugged for sale in special floor displays in most of its bookstores from late May into early June.

According to Dr. Yaron Brook, executive director of the Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights, “This is the most prominent and widespread display for this novel in all of its publishing history. It is particularly remarkable because it comes more than a half century after its initial publication.

“The fact that the largest bookstore chains in America have chosen to make such a prominent display of Atlas Shrugged is a testimony to the current and growing interest in Ayn Rand’s novels and ideas, and an encouraging sign for America’s future.

“As Americans confront the scary growth of government control over their lives and the economy, they need, more than ever, to learn about Ayn Rand’s conception of a new morality of rational self-interest and her unprecedented defense of freedom and individual rights.”

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Record Number of People Are Listening to Atlas Shrugged

Record Number of People Are Listening to Atlas Shrugged

Washington, D.C., June 22, 2009–The Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights and the media have been reporting on the surge in sales of Ayn Rand’s classic novel Atlas Shrugged over the last six months. Not surprisingly, sales of the Atlas Shrugged audio book are also making impressive gains.

According to Blackstone Audio, one of the publishers of the full text audio edition of Atlas Shrugged, 16,000 audio copies of the novel were sold in the first five months of 2009, compared to around 20,000 in all of 2008. “This is a huge increase,” noted Dr. Yaron Brook, executive director of the Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights. “This year audio copies of Atlas Shrugged are selling at about twice the rate as last year.”

Reports from trade sources have indicated that book purchases of Atlas Shrugged have also spiked recently, having tripled in the first four months of 2009 compared to the first four months of 2008. “The tripling in sales of Atlas Shrugged is remarkable,” said Dr. Brook, “especially considering that in 2008 a new all-time record in annual sales of the novel was established with more than 200,000 copies sold in the United States.”

More than 6,500,000 copies of Atlas Shrugged have been sold to date.

“Given the striking similarities between the plot-line of the book and the events of our day, more Americans are reading and listening to Atlas Shrugged than ever before,” said Yaron Brook. “Hopefully, they will find in Atlas Shrugged the principled solutions to the problems we face today.”

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The K Street gang invades Tallahassee

Campaign like Lions, Vote like Sheep

One day our local Legislators will look back at the 2009 legislative sessions and realize when offered good advice to take it. Although this may come as a shock, the world does not revolve around Tallahassee.

All the rabbits have been pulled from the hat in the state budget. None are left. Next year – the election year – you will have to make the severe cuts. Re-read Machiavelli, do the worst – first. Cut in 2009 so that a break-even 2010 looks good. Assuming the state were even in a break even position next year.
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William F. Buckley vs. Ayn Rand: Ayn Rand’s Revenge

By Joseph McHugh
American Chronicle

I normally do not read or comment on gossipy biographies of famous people, especially written by their family members who may be a bit too bitter to be objective. But the just published memoir by William F. Buckley Jr.´s son Christopher about his parents´ deaths piqued my interest.

First a little background. Stories are myriad today about the renewed popularity of the novel “Atlas Shrugged” by novelist-philosopher Ayn Rand. With capitalism widely being declared dead or defunct it may seem strange to some people that masses of Americans are turning to this work of literature which celebrates laissez-faire capitalism, among other, more fundamental, themes.

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June RLCCEF meeting draws 90 attendees; Tenth Amendement Resolution in bill drafting

More than 90 people attended last night’s Republican Liberty Caucus of Central East Florida June Meeting featuring guest speaker Will Pitts, State Chair of the Republican Liberty Caucus of Florida.

“This is more than twice the attendance we had last month, and proof positive that Americans will no longer sit idly by while our Constitution is trampled by short sighted politicians and special interest groups,” said Matt Nye, Chair of the RLCCEF. “Every single person at that meeting has a sincere desire to effect positive change, and that is exactly what we are going to do.”
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Punishing Google for Its Success

By Alex Epstein (Investor’s Business Daily, June 4, 2009)

The Obama administration’s Department of Justice recently announced that it will dramatically increase enforcement of antitrust laws against successful, dominant companies who allegedly harm competition by wielding too much “market power.” What sorts of companies? Experts agree that the first targets might include one of America’s most beloved. “This will be bad news for heavyweights in the tech industries,” a leading scholar told the New York Times, “companies like Google.”

But wait: Isn’t Google a company whose products and services, centered around its fabulously popular search engine, benefit millions of Americans and businesses? Shouldn’t Americans be celebrating Google, and shouldn’t the government be leaving it alone?

No, antitrust enforcers say. Google has become too “dominant” in the search engine market–that is, too many of us choose to type in http://www.google.com/ instead of http://www.yahoo.com/ or http://www.live.com/. This allegedly gives Google too much power over those who wish to buy its coveted, keyword-based advertising. In an influential article on leading technology blog TechCrunch, Wharton professor Eric Clemons argued that “Google enjoys monopoly power over corporations that participate in its keyword auctions” and “Google is abusing its monopoly position by overcharging corporations for access to consumers.”

But what does it even mean to have “abusive monopoly power?”  Well, consider what the “power” of Google–a company no one is forced to deal with and anyone is free to compete with–really amounts to.

Through incredible technical innovation and brilliant management and marketing, Google has created by far the most popular search engine on the planet, attracting hundreds of millions of users. Through additional innovation, it has created the AdSense program, which offers advertisers the ability to reach users whose searches contain keywords associated with the advertisers’ products. Millions of advertisers eager to reach that Google user-base are willing to pay substantially higher rates than less-popular search engines can charge. Google even holds expensive auctions for top keywords.

Google’s prices and terms, often denigrated as “overcharging” and “unfair,” are in fact earned. And Google’s power to attain them exists only as long as it continues to offer superior value to its advertising customers. The minute AdSense’s rates stop making financial sense to advertisers, Google will see its dominance disappear. Critics bemoan the difficulty faced by competitors trying to overtake Google in search and advertising revenue–but that just proves how much value Google brings to the table, relative to anyone else. This is grounds for admiration of a superior competitornot prosecution for being “anticompetitive.”

Google has no power to force consumers to use its products and no power to prevent competitors from offering products of their own. Consequently, it can pose no threat to anyone’s rights or to the competitive process. (If Google ever does use coercion, as is alleged in a copyright case against the company, it should be prosecuted–but this has nothing to do with antitrust.)

There is, however, one player in today’s market that can thwart competition: the government. By using the vast and arbitrary political power given to it by antitrust law, the government can forcibly control successful companies such as Google and Microsoft, telling them what products they cannot sell, what markets they cannot enter, what prices they cannot charge. Obama’s new push to “protect competition” is the real threat to competition. Under the reign of antitrust, any superior company can be stopped in its tracks because some bureaucrat, company, or academic decides that the prices in its voluntary contracts are too high, or its voluntary terms are too onerous, or evento take another common accusation against Google–that its stable of free products is too large! In other words, Google is to be shackled so that future competitors can catch up to Gmail, Google Maps, and Google Books.

Success earned in a free, competitive process is an achievement. Our Department of Justice regards it as a crime. Thus, we may well see Google undergo the fate of Microsoft, which has been tortured, drained, and shackled by more than a decade of antitrust persecution–for adding a web browser to its fabulously successful operating system. Google famously encourages employees to devote 20% of their time to creative projects of their own choosing. An antitrust case could effectively force much of that precious time and energy to be devoted to mollifying and obeying Washington’s economic little Caesars. Let’s challenge this travesty-in-the-making, along with its underlying theory that successful companies possess “monopoly power,” before America commits yet another sin against capitalism.

He’s No Rand Disciple

By Alex Epstein (Published in American Banker, May 20, 2009)

In a recent story about former BB&T CEO John Allison’s support of Ayn Rand’s laissez-faire ideas, including a gold standard, (“Allison Shrugs”) American Banker repeats an unfortunate misconception about Rand, one that is often used to undermine anyone who agrees with her: “Even former Federal Reserve Board Chairman Alan Greenspan, Rand’s most famous student, has backed away from her ideas as the financial crisis has deepened.”

But Greenspan can’t “back away” from something he hasn’t believed or supported for decades. Remember, this is a man who for two decades reveled in wielding the manipulative power granted to him as Fed Chairman–a job he once (rightly) argued should not exist. The New York Times called him “the infallible maestro of the financial system.” Free markets don’t have “infallible maestros”; they liberate us from such “maestros”–the central planners who have time and again falsely claimed the ability and the right to orchestrate (dictate) millions of economic lives.

Greenspan long ago degenerated into another central planner–and a particularly bad one, both because of his highly inflationary policies (a fundamental cause of the crisis) and because he implemented them under the banner of laissez-faire. If one wishes to understand or argue with the laissez-faire ideas of Ayn Rand, Alan Greenspan is the last person to look to. He stands for free markets about as much as a Chinese censor stands for free speech.

Constitution is not a ‘living document’

“On every question of construction, (let us) carry ourselves back to the time when the Constitution was adopted, recollect the spirit manifested in the debates, and instead of trying (to see) what meaning may be squeezed out of the text, or invented against it, (let us) conform to the probable one in which it was passed.”

One of the most dangerous philosophical and patriotic heresies facing the American Republic is the argument that the Constitution is a “living document” designed to be flexible enough to assign to the federal government the power to apply “new solutions to new problems.”
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